Al Pacino, in first collaboration with director Brian De Palma since Scarface, plays a Puerto Rican, Carlito
Brigante, an ex-con who, within the time-honored code of nobility, and tries
to go straight. His character's grace and dignity help carry the duality of
the film and bind us through his honorable noble-thief intentions. Penelope
Ann Miller is uncharacteristically playing a stripper (the good) and is
certainly capable of pulling some strings of sensuality, but the true star,
and continually proven best actor of his generation, in one of his least
recognizable, but most memorable, roles as dishonest Jewish lawyer Kleinfeld
(the bad) is Sean Penn - who incidentally did this film solely for money to
help fund his masterful The Crossing Guard. De Palma, whom I have
consistently been on the fence about, cuts a smooth stylish cloth of both
exciting action and intense emotions. The film is a rough ride... but an
impacting one. One of the better, if not the best film to come out of
Hollywood in 93'. out of

NOTE:The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.

ADDITION - Universal -
Region FREE -
Blu-ray May 2010 -

Short story - of all the Universal editions this
is by far the best at over 4X the bitrate of the "Ultimate Edition" DVD from
2003. Like the HD-DVD version that came out October 23rd, 2007 - this
Blu-ray
utilizes a VC-1 encode but the file size is larger than
the capacity of that, now defunct, format. The
Blu-ray
has over 40 Gig devoted to the almost 2.5 hour feature.
The image quality is a significant improvement over the DVDs with greater
detail and depth with grain is visible especially in the black and white
sequence.

The lossless DTS-HD track is powerful at almost 4000 kbps.
There are plenty of effects in the film and while not extensive separation -
when it occurs - it is dramatic with abundant range. Being a De Plama film -
the pauses (and slow-mos) take on relevant significance. There are optional
subtitles and my Momitsu
has identified
it as being a region FREE disc playable on
Blu-ray
machines worldwide.

No new extras beyond the 2003 UE (De Palma on CW, Deleted
Scenes and Making of... - all in SD) but the
Blu-ray does have the My Scenes
feature (plenty to choose from in this film) and D-Box motion controls.

I've always been a big fan of Carlito's Way and the
Blu-ray is the one you want to own.

NOTE: We initially had the UE DVD screen grabs in 720 to
match the non-anamorphic ones but larger (800 pixel wide), more accurate,
caps eventually followed.

NOTE on the UE DVD: I seem to have trouble playing this new ULTIMATE edition on my
trustworthy Malata 393a, but my region 1 Toshiba seems to play it fine.

ADDITION - Universal NTSC 'Ultimate Edition' - (September
2005) -
Well, Studios never seem to be at a loss to name the 'next great' version
on DVD - We have various 'Anniversary', 'Collector's', 'Platinum', 'Superbit' etc.
... and this, of course, this is the 'Ultimate' (which may be hard to top,
literally speaking).

Firstly, I had no part
in our initial comparison and I don't know why the captures were shrunk so
much smaller than usual.

The Ultimate edition is on 1 two sides disc with the Film on one
side and the Extras on the opposite.

I wouldn't say this image is stellar - it is appears that most of
the 'ultimate-ness' belongs with the extra features - which are very good.
It is anamorphic - progressive - tight to the frame, but skin tones still
have that orangey look at times, which may be intentional. It is still
dark, which also may be intentional. The DTS audio, white subtitles and
extensive extra features are fabulous - the only thing missing is a
commentary. Of all the releases I would think this may very well be the
definitive. We recommend.

ADDITION - French Region 2- (Aug 2004) - Skin tones
appear a little orange on the French version, but sharpness looks identical.
It does have a French DTS track (for those desiring a French DUB), but the
rest looks identical (extras etc.). Seems comparable to the Canadian
edition.

First of all, the anamorphic
R1 picture is obviously better than the old R2 one. Indeed, the master has
been cleaned (see dust on Pacino's noise [1st capture] and on the left of
the Prison barge [3rd capture]) and the definition, compression and
contrast are definitely controlled. There are about 3 years between the two
releases.

The only bad point is, when the R2 picture is bright and blue (3rd cap.),
the new collector edition is overzoomed (eg. the bridge on the 4th cap. is
cropped on both sides) and is a bit dull despite on its more natural
colors.